Common Time
by Iwantthatcoat
Summary: Sherlock accompanies John to a party at St. Barts and contemplates the priority of their friendship, as John continues to date. (Straight!John and Asexual!Sherlock)


I do not own any of these characters

Common Time

He didn't dislike children, actually. They tended to ask very good questions (and adults tended to give very poor answers). The problem was he disliked _other-peoples'-children_… and he didn't have any of his own.

That is to say, if he happened to meet a child sufficiently like himself, he would enjoy his or her company. He was not afraid to explain the process of light refraction to a four-year-old, if ever confronted with a query as to why the sky is blue. He even got a tad nostalgic for the days when it was still considered socially acceptable to mutely ignore annoying people, or to storm off into one's room without supper. Come to think of it, the only thing he did as a child that he had ceased to do upon reaching adulthood was to hold his breath until his face turned blue. Mycroft had put a stop to that activity; it was simply pointless to pass out and still not have gotten his way. And nowadays, he answered his own very good questions.

So Sherlock satisfied this odd form of narcissism by giving extra candy to the children who had obviously participated in the making of their own costumes (instead of having Mum pop off to Tesco to buy whatever character was popular this year), and anyone fortunate enough to have been dressed as a pirate. Long fingers deftly sorted through the bowl of allotted candy, as he deduced which type each child-to-be-commended would like best. Those in costumes not displaying proper theme or initiative were punished accordingly. _After all, someone has to get the candy corn and pencils with the hospital logo_, he thought.

He quietly contemplated an alternate universe where he had married and had children of his own. It seemed equally far-fetched as the television programme John had forced him to watch by steadfastly refusing to change the channel: drivel about yet another alternate universe where men of a certain age went through some ridiculous heat cycle and eventually became pregnant. People are fascinated with alternate universes. _Is this universe really so boring? _As he glanced around the vaguely mad-scientist-themed hospital banquet hall, adult-Sherlock yet again answered his own question.

Wonderful. He was now bored of thinking about how boring this all was. An anatomical skeleton model dragged out of one of the teaching rooms. Black rubber bats dangling from ceiling tiles. Frozen-carbon-dioxide-imbued punch with two hands and a head floating in it- not actual hands and head (_how disappointing_), but gloves and a mask which had been filled with water and frozen... the impromptu mold discarded, leaving icy hands and a ghostly head in said punch. A slight smile flitted across his face. Maybe they used latex gloves instead of nitrile? Surely at least one of the hundreds of attendees would be allergic to latex … _only 1% of the general public, but closer to 10% of health care workers, due to repeated exposure before adequate precautions were taken. If a non-hospital-employee prepared the punch, they might have overlooked the possibility of allergen-based anaphylaxis_. The smile faded quickly. Of course the gloves would have been nitrile. Molly has clearly been the one to have supplied the punch. It reeked of women's magazine. Kelli Hoppen? No. A Kelli Hoppen project would surely require some strange crafter's tool Molly wouldn't possess. This was the result of an online Googling which had inevitably led to some website promising "How to Make Your Halloween Party Frightastic", or some such horrid thing. If it was just the icy hands and head, or just the CO2-induced fog, it would have worked much better. _Having both is insecurity-based overkill, designed to impress. Molly._

At least there were children here. Not one of those dreadful adult soirées where everyone was a naughty nurse, or a naughty witch or a naughty centurion or a naughty caveman or a naughty (his right hand making an almost imperceptible dismissive motion in a conversation entirely with himself) air traffic controller or something.

Mummy had despised Halloween… children going from house to house begging for sweets. Mycroft despaired how the holiday was rapidly supplanting Guy Fawkes Night, an event he deemed truly historic and worthy of retention (but the disillusionment had not prevented him from happily gorging himself on Halloween candy). Sherlock was still too young to fully appreciate how an attempt to blow up Parliament could be turned into cause for celebration (after all, Mycroft didn't frequent the building until many years later). During a brief holiday in the States, Mummy decided to allow the Holmes boys to go trick-or-treating, since their cousins did so, and when in Rome… The candy was good, the night warm and clear, lit by a glorious harvest moon.

This- this was a different affair entirely. A costume-optional (_thank God_!) charity event, a fundraiser at St. Bart's for children with some sort of ailment adults thought children should be immune to, or protected from by divine providence. Was it more tragic if a child died? He suspected the real issue was wasted time. When a child dies, adults are forced to think about time differently. How little of it could be allotted. How they were wasting it. Sherlock almost smiled as he thought of how he was wasting it right this very moment.

John spotted Sarah early on, and they were still engrossed in conversation. Laughter. Warm smiles. Dull, non-toxic punch in hand… offered and accepted. The inevitable toss of the hair. A second woman, _a nurse, no, a pedatrician, newly divorced, tired of her husband's midlife crisis, always wanted a family, thinks she's getting old and can't wait any longer-_ looked up when she heard John's laugh.

Sherlock put down the nearly empty bowl. Grey eyes shifted back to John as he watched him flick a crumb off his jumper, then Sherlock closed them in a slow blink. J_ohn looks so... ordinary. Oh, but he is not ordinary. He is normal. John is normal and he will want a normal life_. _How much time could I possibly have left?_


End file.
